From transaction to collaboration: redefining the academic-archivist relationship in business collections

Collaboration has risen up the agenda for archives and universities in recent years, yet there is unrealized potential for co-productive modes of research between archivists and academics, with business collections facing particular obstacles. This article, co-written by an archivist and a historian, presents the findings of a project that aims to support business archivists to develop co-designed research projects that mobilize business collections in rigorous ways to meet present-day business priorities (and so demonstrate to parent organizations the value of their archives and expert archivists). The project involved a collaborative process of workshops, interviews and a survey, which has allowed the project network to develop guidance materials. The authors discuss three key themes that emerged from the process, reflecting the distinctive concerns of archivists working in organizational repositories and the factors that influence their pursuit of academic collaborations. There then follows an analysis of ‘mind-set’ barriers to collaboration: questions of professional culture and practice or intellectual stance that can influence attitudes to and pursuit of collaborative projects between historians and archivists. The authors argue for an open and dialogic approach to designing collaborative research, acknowledging the constraints and imperatives for archivists and academics and recognizing the complementarity of their expertise.